Addiction and Relationships

Pain. Whether it be physical or emotional, it has a large part in Addiction. When I entered into Bradford, I realized that I ran from pain. Whether it be greif, marital issues, failing as a mother, or the failure in society. My weakness was pain, and forgetting how to deal with it. To be brutally honest I lost myself. I didn't know what I wanted out of my life. I didn't know my purpose in life, because I was failing at/in everything. All of my pain was brought back to the surface in rehab, and there I sat not knowing how to control all my emotions, alone, overwhelmed at all the new issues I have created, relationships I destroyed, and nothing to numb the pain.
Coming home from treatment was scarey, exciting, dredful, and intimidating. We have to realize that during the time we were helping ourselves, getting counseling, and coming to the realization of how sick we were and reasons of why we ran to drugs... our families are still just as hurt as the day they found out we were addicts. They had picked up our slack when we really shouldn't have even been in our position. My family was glad I got help, but their hearts were still broken by what I had become. They were disappointed, and to be honest I was disappointed in myself. My family still could not grasp nor understand who I had become and didn't truly know if that old me was ever gonna come back. I had lost all of their trust, my addiction affected them a lot longer than it had affected me. No one taught me how to rebuild these relationships. No one taught my family about what do we do now, what should we expect?
We damage more relationships than we even acknowledge. We have to realize that not all relationships can be fixed, but we still have to put ourselves out there and voice our sincere apologies. Some relationships will be stronger than what they were before. For an example, I knew how to push my husband til he had to talk about my addiction. I knew he needed to express his hurt, anger, and frustration. As he broke and was voicing his emotions, I knew it was time for me to humble myself and realize I'M NOT THE VICTIM. We talked and he calmed down. I explained to him some of the pain and reasons why I used drugs. I also had to explain why I hid it from him. He was thinking I was doing drugs to have fun and party, but I was really ashamed of myself and feared he would leave me. I feared he would take my kids and run.
When we come out of treatment, I know I was ok to talk about my addiction but when my dad would...it hurt me. I would get angry, and I would mentally beat myself up. Is that right? Is that fair? No. It's not. We can't come out of treatment and go through our lives only acknowledging OUR pain. We need to hear their hurts and pains. We need to know that we aren't the only ones who got hurt. We have to know what we need to be sorry over, and that will also help us show that we have changed. Communication, it's all we have to work with.
With addiction we realize some people go, and we will also have people come into our lives that bless us. Recovering from addiction is a lot of rebuilding and repairing those broken relationships.